On 11/12/2012 8:46 PM, Jens O. Meiert wrote:
>>> <http://meiert.com/en/blog/20121112/the-css-problem/>.
>> You don't suggest an alternative.
> I believe I do, by suggesting a different focus on the Working Group
> side (what is critical, and hence, implied, what can be removed?), and
> also more focus on the community side (how can we get the most out of
> CSS without constantly screaming “more, more”?).
The adage that 80% of your users use only 20% of your features comes to
mind, as does the equally important adage that they all use a different
20% of them.
Looking at the list of CSS current-work specifications, I would consider
backgrounds & borders, multi-column, and flexbox to be the only
"critical" specifications for my needs. Judging from mailing list
traffic (i.e., how many times the same feature has been re-requested in
various forms) over the past several years, parts of Selectors 4, CSS
conditionals, and variables would rank as "critical" work. Judging from
code that has found its way on the web, animations, transitions, and
transforms seems to have fallen into the category of "critical" as well.
I'll also point out that judging complexity from the number of
properties is a poor proxy, as the marginal difficulty of implementing
border-left over border-right is far less than the marginal difficulty
of implementing a variable property, and the extra cost in adding a new
display: type can be as large as most properties.
--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth